Vietnamese American community celebrates Tet across country

This year’s Tet celebration which officially begins today, January 29, is extra special.

The Vietnamese New Year comes just three months before the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon and the beginning of the escape from Vietnam to the U.S. and other countries.

“So many of my generation’s parents, grandparents, ancestors came 50 years ago hoping to find a better life in places like America. And for us, what we’ve seen in the last 10, 15 years is the elder generation is starting to get older, to have less capacity for organizing,” said Philip Nguyen, executive director of the Vietnamese American Roundtable, to KTVU.

Nguyen marked the occasion by helping to organize a Vietnamese New Year’s parade this past Saturday in San Jose which more than 100,000 Vietnamese Americans call home.

In New York, Ambassador Dang Hoang Giang, the Vietnamese Permanent Mission to the UN, hosted a special Tet program for some 500 Vietnamese Americans.

Vietnam Pictorial reports he thanked the Vietnamese community for their continued connection to their former home country and expressed a desire for them to assist in its development.

In Southern California’s Orange County, numerous celebrations are taking place. Little Saigon officially began in Westminster with a resolution in 1988. However, the community has since expanded to Garden Grove and into Santa Ana and Fountain Valley.

“It has been a vigorous pace of growth for the community,” Anil Puri, economist and director of the Woods Center, said to the OC Register.

In the 2022 census, more than 215,000 Vietnamese Americans live din the county with 100,000 of them in Little Saigon.

“Orange County today is different from the 1980s, it is a highly diverse community. Very rich cultural traditions and all kinds of communities live in Orange County,” Puri said. “And Little Saigon is actually leading that diversity. Being in the heart of Orange County, Little Saigon has driven that diversity to some extent.”

Today it is represented by Rep. Derek Tran (D), the first Vietnamese American congressperson from California.

“As the son of refugees and the first Vietnamese American to represent Little Saigon in Orange County, California, I was especially proud to don my “áo dài” — a traditional garb that is worn to celebrate special occasions — on the floor of the House of Representatives to celebrate Tết, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year. I am honored and humbled to represent the culture and heritage of my community in Congress,” he said in a statement sent to AsAmNews.